


crab god

by pyrality (orphan_account)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angsty???, Character Study, Implications of AkaMido, M/M, Unrequited Takao, thoughtful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/pyrality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takao Kazunari considers that Oha Asa can tell him a lot of things about Midorima Shintarou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crab god

**Author's Note:**

> Disjointed as hell sorry!  
> Kind of a self-indulgent thought process/POV study of Takao.  
> Used a reference to this: http://zodiacsociety.tumblr.com/post/25613580850

Cancers are loyal.  
  
This is something Takao has learned about Midorima Shintarou. When they find someone worth keeping, their pincers cling to them, protecting them as much as it stifles them. Cancers are excruciatingly devoted to their friends and comrades, and they may not show it in plainly obvious ways, but it’s there if you squint.   
  
(Takao doesn’t need to squint and Midorima has taken over his life anyway, burrowed into his heart when he hadn’t noticed.)   
  
Cancers are emotional. Takao will never understand why people whisper Midorima’s name with the word ‘heartless’ closely following. He’s seen the way the bespectacled teen frets when he considers how to gently let down a girl, seen the way Midorima speaks through touch if not words, seen the way Midorima’s eyes reflect his internal world.   
  
(But no one else sees that, they only see him frowning at his desk as a girl fidgets next to him, they only see the condescension in Midorima’s arm on Takao’s shoulder, they only see the cold glimmer of his glasses instead of the ocean in his tired eyes.)  
  
Sometimes, Takao tosses and turns in bed, warm under his sleep shirt and flannel pants with burning questions underneath his skin. Do they choose not to notice sensitivity where it resides deep within Midorima? Do they not see where guilt and self-loathing dwells and eats through him like acid and corrosion? His fingers fist in his pillow, the veins in his hands rising to the surface, and he lets out a harsh breath.  
  
"Takao," Midorima had said earlier that night, haltingly. He lingered, cheeks lightly flushed in the dull glow of lights behind him, with one foot over the threshold of his home. He dropped his voice and his gaze when he spoke next, "Sleep early tonight. You need rest."  
  
Takao remembered smiling and the small, tentative curve of Midorima's answering lips before he closed the door behind himself.  
  
(These are rare moments and Takao treasures them as much as they make him ache in his chest.)  
  
In stolen minutes in class, images of Midorima, older, expression softened by age and affection, appear in his mind. The bespectacled man would laugh, careful and fond, resting the barely covered bony jut of his hips against the kitchen counter. He would sip at his coffee and run a hand through his sleep-ruffled hair. Maybe he would hum thoughtfully at the grocery list posted on the refrigerator next to dozens of sloppy post-it notes and pictures that speak of unknowable intimacy. Takao would settle sly fingers against his waist and press close on his tiptoes to taste domesticity and milk-sweetened coffee off of Midorima's slightly chapped lips.  
  
Takao rubs a hand over his closed eyes and tries not to think about how he's seen the way Midorima looks at Akashi. (There is reverence and devotion in his gaze and he always looks years older with the way his eyebrows crease and the line of his lips flatten.) Something in him twinges, pinches like crab pincers against the flesh of his thigh, because Midorima will never look at him exactly that same, unguarded way.  
  
Takao expects Akashi Seijuurou to be the kind of individual who loves like he lives-- unyielding, almost unhealthily preoccupied with himself. But the dichromatic teen is anything but and it frightens him. Akashi is softness under steel, warmth under ice, and the way he touches Midorima's elbow and looks up at him speaks of trust and intimacy the heights of which Takao has only seen among long time couples.  
  
Oha Asa is right about a lot of things regarding Midorima. But Takao doesn't put any stock in what Oha Asa has to say about the Cancer’s romantic life. He closes the tab on his phone and tosses it aside haphazardly, wincing when he hears it slide off the bed and hit the ground. (It told him that Cancer and Scorpio are more compatible than Cancer and Sagittarius, but it’s wrong, of course.)   
  
He doesn't need horoscopes to tell what's already so plainly obvious about the person Midorima Shintarou loves.


End file.
